On Like Donkey Kong

Annabelle, contemplating the pros and cons of underwear for squirrels. ...

CARE PACKAGE: Today our most pressing deadline was getting our box ready to ship off to a friend in the Army in Afghanistan. It had to be postmarked today in order to arrive in Afghanistan by Christmas.

We placed Annabelle and CJ's Veteran's Day poems in it, a couple of Rolling Stone magazines, some yummy, locally-made nutrition bars, a couple of packages of salmon jerky, and a cool little silver plug in Christmas tree in the box. All good stuff, but we needed to up our box's fun factor.

Enter Archie McPhee.

There, we got a great assortment of ridiculous things I hope will bring smiles to a few soldiers' faces in Afghanistan, such as cupcake flavored dental floss, nacho flavored lip balm, wasabi gumballs, ranch dressing toothpicks, bacon bandages, some Power Rangers playing cards and notepads, bacon-flavored fizzy tabs for dropping in a bottle of water and more. My favorite purchase was a tin of "Ballpark Gum" which is supposed to be hot dog, peanut and beer flavored. We tucked a little stuffed Mariners Moose in for good measure (I can picture Kyle gifting that to an Afghani child).

Now, we just cross our fingers and hope our box makes it to its destination. I have my doubts because our postal service in this neck of the woods is often really Really terrible. I totally do NOT trust how they handled the box and its requisite customs forms at the P.O. today. Keep your fingers crossed.

RAINBOW COMPLEXION: Today we read "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon. It's about a little girl (Camilla) who is very worried about fitting in with her peers to the point she tries on 42 outfits before the first day of school and she won't eat her beloved Lima beans because she knows other kids don't like them.

Tragedy strikes when Camilla's complexion turns to rainbow stripes. As if that weren't bad enough, those stripes morph into other colors and patterns. The other kids make fun of her and she's soon banned from school for fear of being contagious. Experts are called in to help, but to no avail. Eventually a cure is discovered - and it would have been discovered sooner had Camilla stayed true to herself instead of being so worried about what others think.

I hopped online to try to find some related activities and found a lesson plan on ReadThinkWrite.

It pointed us in the direction of a couple of interactive features about bullying.

First, the kids played "Beat the Bully." Its setting is the year 2248 and the challenge was to take on the biggest bullies at Britney Spears Memorial Junior High (which made me laugh). They were presented with a series of situations involving bullying behavior and had to choose the best way out. I was impressed that they chose right each time (so much for being socially maladjusted homeschoolers).

Next, they used a neat tool called "Story Strips." They got to choose the type of conflict, and opted for a brother and sister arguing about which show to watch. They got to fill-in some blanks to create their story ...OUT AND ABOUT: We had to go to the (gawd awful) Magnolia P.O. this afternoon, so we did our jog/trot/ride around the Village. It was a short, bad expedition as just a few blocks into it, Annabelle apparently forgot how to ride a bike and out of nowhere laid her bike down.

As far as falls go, it could have been worse. There were no strawberries to deal with - just a few tears. But we did cut the excursion short. She managed to rally enough to scramble around the Catharine Blaine playground afterward.
ON LIKE DONKEY KONG: We were watching "The Colbert Report" tonight and CJ had lots of questions about it, like "Is this real?" He could tell it looked like a 'regular' news program, but it didn't sound like one to his ear. We explained that it's a comedy based on reality.

Imagine CJ's interest when Colbert did a (hilarious) segment about Nintendo looking to copyright the phrase "On like Donkey Kong."

Veterans Day

A tattered flag flapping in the wind along Magnolia Boulevard this morning.

They need to replace this Old Glory, pronto.

IN REMEMBRANCE: We started our morning talking about Veterans Day. The kids are certainly familiar with what it's about, but it never hurts to reinforce the ideas, right. So, we watched History.com's video about Veterans Day.

Afterward, the kids completed a couple of Veterans Day worksheets from EnchangedLearning.com. On one, they used 12 Veterans Day-related vocab words listed to finish sentences. Next, they arranged 10 Veterans Day words in alphabetical order (from army to valor).

Then I gave them a choice about the type of poem they'd like to write about Veterans Day. CJ chose to write an acrostic poem, using the word Veteran as his word starters. He wrote:

Valor
Endure
Tough
Excellent
Ready
America
Navy, Army

Bee chose to write a diamante poem (subject, two adjectives, three -ing words, four nouns, three more -ing words, two more adjectives, subject). She wrote:

Veterans
Brave, defenders
Marching, standing, fighting
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines
Honoring, serving, remembering
Family, friends
Soldiers

We'll be putting those poems in a box that's Afghanistan bound. Rick's best bud from first grade and onward is in the Army, serving in harm's way over there. According to the USPS Web site, if we mail our box tomorrow, it should reach him by Christmas.

WE'RE BLUFFING: We decided to get our exercise with a view today. We ran along Millionaire's Row (Magnolia Boulevard). It was mostly cloudy, but we did catch Mount Rainier with some sun on it at least for a couple of moments.There's no "play park" along the bluff, but there are several open green spaces with benches, and the kids are always able to make a game out of that. Today, CJ decided he was The Bench of Wisdom. As people sat on the bench, he would tell their fortune.

When Christian sat down, The Bench of Wisdom told him he was going to have another baby. Christian laughed and told The Bench that wasn't happenin'. When I sat on the bench, the Wisdom told me, "You will get a black Wii." That made me LOL. Talk about projecting (as it's a well known fact in our house that The Bench of Wisdom himself wants a black Wii).
GIVING THANKS: Last week I bought a turkey breast on sale (tis the season). This morning, I realized that Rick, Kennedy and Christian all had the day off (a rarity) decided to do a full on Thanksgiving dinner. So today I made turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn muffins and a strawberry margarita cheesecake. Mmm, mmm, good.

Pretty Projects

A.M. ART: It had been a couple of days since we've taken on a seasonal art project, so today we decided to avail ourselves of an Activity TV cartooning lesson. The project: draw an American Indian girl holding a couple of ears of corn.

As cartoonist Bruce Blitz explained during the lesson, if not for the American Indians' sharing their corn growing knowledge with the pilgrims, there might not be a Thanksgiving.
As usual, the kids approached their cartoon step-by-careful step. Once they had the figure drawn, they added color. Annabelle used colored pencils. CJ nused watercolor markers.
Annabelle really went to town adding some custom touches to her drawing, including some words on the girl's dress and a corn stalk growing next to her.

STILL SWEET: This morning we revisited the book we read yesterday, "Saving Sweetness." We used an activity guide from the Web site of the book's publisher. I used their reading comprehension questions and was impressed that the kids nailed them all. One of the questions I asked them was, "What's an orphan?" I laughed when CJ actually quoted from the book (in a drawl), "That means she ain't got no ma and she ain't got no pa." Honestly, they both seemed to have total recall of the story.

There was a vocabulary exercise where the kids had to match words from the story (varmint, canteen, dilemma, desperado, trifle, ambled, commenced) with a defining word. They aced that, too.

IN A SLURRY: When we arrived at science this afternoon in Shorline, I could tell today's task was going to be complex. There were bowls and containers and bowls and containers and more bowls and containers around the room. Right off the bat the kids were instructed to take a few sheets of TP, separate the plies, shove 'em into a plastic bottle. I helped add water to the kids' bottles and then they let them sit for a bit before giving them a good shake. What they were doing was separating the fibers and making slurry - a mixture to be strained with a screen and then drained and pressed flat to make a small disc of paper.Once they had that done that, they were ready for a bit more complicated paper making project.

This time they had a bowl full of slurry (a watery pulpy mixture) and they got to chose some string, yarn, fabric and paper pieces to add to it. Next, they took they prettified slurry over to the sink area, where the science teacher and I were manning screens and frames in tubs of water. They poured their slurry into the frame and spread it out to the frame borders. We took the screen out of the water bath, sopped up some excess water with a sponge.Next, we flipped the pulpy rectangle out onto a piece of interfacing and used a sponge to extract more water. That, and the kids each stood on their paper in the making, which was sandwiched between some Sham-wow-like sopper-upper.
The photo below is of Annabelle's paper. It's between two sheets of interfacing, so the colors aren't as vibrant as they will be when it's dry and the interfacing is removed. I can't wait to see it when it's all dry next week.
FINALLY!: I had a feeling that today was going to be the day, and sure 'nuff, it was.

After we got home from Shoreline, we set out for a run/bike ride. We headed to Lawton Elementary. For months and months now they've been renovating a playground in a park adjacent to the school. It was supposed to be done in September, but it wasn't. And October came and went and it was still fenced off with 8-foot high chainlink. There were still areas fenced off where they're trying to get grass established, but otherwise, finally today the park was open. In fact, apparently it was its grand opening. There were dozens of excited kids there playing. Annabelle quickly fell in with a group of girls playing "family." She was the third sister.

CJ had a great play session with a couple of boys who looked to be exactly his age. They were playing dinosaurs and trying to protect their dinosaur eggs from one another. They were getting a little bit physical but were good about not crossing the line into too-rough play.

FLY, FLY AWAY: We got some sad news tonight. Dave Niehaus, the FOREVER voice of the Mariners, died today.
Niehaus was at the mic for the Ms first game back in 1977, and he's been there ever since. Little did we know when we were at Safeco Field for the last game of the 2010 season, we were there when Niehaus called his final game.

In their relatively short lives, CJ and Annabelle have heard hundreds of hours of Niehaus bringing baseball to life. Their big brothers Rick and Kennedy have likely heard into the thousands of hours of Hall of Famer Niehaus' magnificent work.

I know the game will go on, but right now, I can't imagine a Mariners season without him.

Totally Tuesday

MORNING GROOMING: Before the sun was up this a.m., Annabelle and Kirby were lazing on the couch, watching cartoons. At one point Annabelle says to me, "Mom, would you bring me some child safety scissors?"

Um, sure ...

"I found a mat on Kirby." And so, without taking her eyes off of cartoons, Annabelle did some doggie grooming.

MAKING MUSIC: This morning the kids had some music homework to complete. They transcribed some "triplet" cards into their notebooks. I had to laugh at Annabelle's self-chosen outfit for her day. Maybe we'd all do a little better with the daily drudgery if we donned princess mouse ears and a superhero cape.In addition to a transcribing exercise, the kids had to listen to "My Bonnie" from their Musikgarten CD.
As the track was playing, CJ asked me, "What does 'over the ocean' mean? Does it mean she got washed away by the sea?"

I told him that no, it meant that someone's loved one was far away.

"You mean she forgot to take the plane?" he quizzed.

"Maybe," I replied. "Or maybe she has work or other stuff that keeps her away, but what it means is that she's far away - across the sea - and he misses her."

I thought it would be fun for them to hear another version of the song, and the first one YouTube produced was by The Beatles (who knew?). CJ approved. "I like this more than Miss Nancy's one because it's rockin'. I like the rocking more than just normal music," he qualified.

BOPPIN' BONNIE: The "My Bonnie" theme continued through their music class. When I showed up for the parent participation portion, our fun and games involved the group alternatively sitting and standing every time there was a word starting with the letter B in the song. It got pretty hysterical at points!

STUDY UP: With his free time this afternoon CJ found and watched a three part interview on YouTube with the creators of Mortal Kombat 3. It amazes me how he is taking it upon himself to school himself in the history of computers and gaming consoles. He doesn't just want to play games, he wants to know who designed them, why and how they did it, who the publisher is/was, what systems the games were ported to and so on.

I mean, I don't know how you spent your time in the shower today, but mine was interrupted seven times by CJ needing to tell me some nuance about the genesis and evolution of the "Altered Beast" series of games.

DONE DEAL: Today we put the finishing touches on our cork coaster project. They turned out nicely by my eye.SWEET INDEED This afternoon we read a gem of a book, "Saving Sweetness." It's the story of the "ittiest, bittiest orphan Sweetness." Desperate to escape the orphanage at any cost, Sweetness busts out on her own. A hapless Sheriff sets out after her - and she ends up adopting him, or vice versa.

The book is rife with fun phrases like "hollerin' like a banshee" and "seemed like the wind was too tired to blow" and "cute as a speckled pup under a wagon" and CJ's favorite, "lit off like she was tryin' to catch yesterday." We had fun talkin' about droppin' Gs from the endin' of words and what that makes language sound like. We also talked about the fun phrases used in the book and what some of them might mean.

Tonight, I found a great activity guide on publisher Live Oak Media's Web site (PDF here). We'll be using it tomorrow, for sure.


A PROMISE IS A PROMISE: In the turn-back-the-clock dark and the November rain we drove down to Columbia City for yoga this evening. Christian work schedule has changed a bit, at least for now. He's off at 2:30 every day (yay!) but he doesn't have Mondays off any more (BIG booooooo!) So he accompanied us to class tonight. Our tentative plan was for the kids to go to yoga and afterward, we'd hit up Full Tilt, the awesome arcade near their yoga studio. Problem was, when we pulled up to the arcade, it was CLOSED. Not cool.

Because we had promised the kids a trip there, we made good on that promise by taking them over to the West Seattle location of Full Tilt.
It doesn't have as good an assortment of arcade games as the Columbia City location, but the kids had a great time nonetheless.

Know When to Fold 'Em

PAPER PROJECT: First thing this a.m. we got busy on our Shoreline science class homework. We're in the midst of a paper unit there and our first assignment was to fold a 'pirate' hat out of newspaper. (Man, how long have kids been doing that?)

The directions were good and the kids had donned their hats in no time.
Next up was an experiment to see if it was possible to fold an 8.5 x 8.5 square inch square of paper into a cup that would hold water. This one was a little bit more complicated - the kids both needed my help to make it happen.

They filled up their cups, and the cups held water. They did a quick toast and then took a sip. Annabelle's water wound up everywhere. CJ was able to drink his, but he wasn't happy with it. He did not like the feel of the paper in his mouth/on his teeth.

LEAFY: Midday we walked up to the neighborhood park a half a block away. It's funny - it's so close but we haven't been there in what seems like weeks!

We were on a mission to find a leaf or two for an afternoon art project. We did that and the kids enjoyed some fresh air and free time in the process. When we got back, we started our craft project - making maple leaf shaped coasters from cork and felt. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: This evening CJ asked us what "Mission Impossible" means. No doubt he discovered the words while doing exhaustive research on video games (there have been several Mission: Impossible video games made).

We told him it originated with a television show, and later there were movies. I told CJ the show had one of the greatest themes of all time, and hopped onto YouTube to find it. Believe it or not, the very first version I found was one someone had done using the Mario Paint program.

Of course, I had to play him the original version, too.

11/11: It's library day today, which means we had to read down the "due" stack. One of the books due back was "Veterans Day" by Marlene Targ Brill.

What a great book! It had a thorough yet concise account of the history of the holiday, which started at the end of World War I. Troops laid down arms on Nov. 11, and that day was celebrated as Armistice Day for years. However, after World War II and the Korean War, the holiday took on new significance. In 1954, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day.

The book also covered the significance of the Tomb of the Unknowns, and shared information about Remembrance Days in other countries, which I thought was a nice touch. (After all, we're certainly not the only ones who value and honor our veterans.)

The book even included a list of Veterans Day resources to consult, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs' VA Kids, Enchanted Learning.com Veterans Day crafts, and even a Veterans Day School Play.

BYE-BYE BILL: Today, we finally finished the Bill Gates biography. You can't argue with his success (she says as she 'types' this on a computer with a Windows operating system). And the Gates Foundation (which is building impressive, expansive digs about 6 minutes from our house) does many great things round the globe. However, I'm not sure that I'm a huge fan for the direction he wants to take the U.S. educational system, and based on what I've been reading for the past several months, I can't help but wonder if he has his sites set on Seattle Public Schools as his testing ground.

BOOK IT: Today was ballet-library. While Bee did her dance thing, we three (four if you count Kirby) jogged to the library and then back past the Community Center where Bee's class is and over to Albertsons. That makes 45 minutes go pretty darn quickly.

When we got home, coat, boots, tight, leotard and skirt and ears still on, Annabelle was right back to a puzzle book she had to leave before her lesson.EASTER EGG HUNT: Tonight we watched the wonderful "Toy Story 3" on DVD. We saw it once before, in IMAX, but it's definitely worth a second look. Plus, now we know the movie is full of (virtual) Easter Eggs, so we used the DVD remote to do a little Easter Egg hunting after watching it.